The Lost Art of Dropping By

Before the leaves started turning one year, we stopped
by our neighbors', the Britos, to eye their yard sale. One of their
sons started up about how people don't talk to each other anymore. He
was a blackjack dealer at one of the casinos, and he was talking about
this and that, and how Espanola, New Mexico, is getting browner and how
beautiful culture is, and how he tells his children (the ones who like
to play cowboys and Eagle Warrior) to turn off the TV so they can have
a nice talk.

“People have lost the art of conversation,” he told us. “Stop by again. I like to have intellectual conversations.”

That was a conversation of long ago. As we've moved, we've befriended
other neighbors: Alice and Joe, who became like tios to us, uncle and
aunt; sweet Robin, who let me cut her rosemary, and we embraced in
peace after 9/11.

People have lost the art of visiting, or just plain neighborliness.
People don't drop by or call. It's all on e-mail—invites to birthday
parties, even notification of nervous breakdowns, divorce, and
funerals, the kind of life markers that once warranted some kind words
and a personal phone call.

We're proud to say we're notorious for dropping in on people
unannounced. Our friends seem to enjoy this because it reminds us all
of how our parents did things, or of the way things were when they were
young and the compadres would drop by. Now a lot of people don't have
time for spontaneity. It's not in the date book.

My husband and I often get inspired to drop in while we're bike riding
or in the mood for pie. In fact, we make mental notes of where friends
live so that we can have options when we don't find one home. We know
friends who visit and say absolutely nothing. They just sit there with
each other. Now that's poetry.

I remember I knew when visitors were coming because my grandmothers
would bring out their best gravy dishes and the china their boys got
them overseas in World War II. They'd serve Mexican hot chocolate or
cinnamon tea. Don Agustin, or some respected señor or señora del
barrio, would come wearing hats and canes and Sunday clothes in the
middle of the week.

Some of my most prized possessions are my grandmothers' gravy dishes,
some teapots, a Mexican traditional chocolate stirrer, and a lime
squeezer for homemade limonada. And when guests drop by, I try to
employ one of them in my feeble attempts at rising to my grandmothers'
graces.

Of course, when we visit my folks in Texas country land between Godley
and Joshua, my husband starts calling me “Mable,” and we joke that we
can do nothin' in the front or nothin' in the back. Most of the
neighbors there are sheep, horses, and dogs. Doin' nothin' is a nice
visit with the land.

Now we live in Madison, Wisconsin. Our neighbor Gladys is 91 and a half
years old. I help her with her hair and grocery errands, and she brings
us cookies. Another neighbor graces us with arias and “Ave Maria.”
Sometimes I see another neighbor with learning disabilities on the bus.
For Halloween, she told me she was going as a bride. When the day came,
I saw her walking in her winter jacket, wearing a white bridal dress,
with her veil flying.

Conversation, visitin' and neighborliness—that's what makes community.
It's time to reclaim our porch, find out what our neighbors are
thinking, and let them know how much we like to hear them sing like a
sweet bird in the shower. And if you're like us, apologize that your
dog whines like a little bitty baby.

Patrisia Gonzales, along with her husband Roberto Rodriguez, writes the syndicated “Column of the Americas.” She is author of The Mud People: Anonymous Heroes of Mexico's Emerging Human Rights Movement (Chusma House Press).

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